


how the snow whispers as it falls

by TalkingAboutTheWeather



Series: how the wind dances on the sand [2]
Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: And violence, Angst, But also, Canon Trans Character, Fluff, M/M, Theres the snow! Again! And the sea! Again!, Trans Male Character, ahhh right, and just..being himself? Trying to be the best version of himself, anyway. they sort of have sex on the beach, bc thats just so difficult. To find out who exactly u are, but also grief, i hope nobody reads these tags, i wanted to explore davids doubts about masculinity more, im so sorry, we need to flex about this as much as possible honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 01:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20462801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalkingAboutTheWeather/pseuds/TalkingAboutTheWeather
Summary: David knows he doesn’t completely fit in a world built for the cis male-female binary and for white people. He probably never will.But neither does he want to.Every day he discovers something new about himself. Every day feels a little like a fight.Every day he tries desperately to do the right thing. It’s all he wants to do, after all.The right thing.Or, David battles with the concept of masculinity and with actions he didn’t knew he was capable of doing. But this time, he has Matteo and his friends beside him.





	how the snow whispers as it falls

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo its not necessary to have read the first part of this series but i think it would help! The important thing to know is that in this verse its his grandfather who more or less raised him, living at the North Sea and telling him lots of myths and fairytales.
> 
> Anyway, im back with this verse and i hope its not too boring!

Not only did David’s grandfather use to tell him stories, he also read many out loud.

He had books strewn all over the house, around and under his bed, on the stairs, on the kitchen counter, even a little pile next to the toilet.

Usually, he used to read fairytales out loud, but sometimes he also read stories that an 8-year-old probably would not have heard in a normal household.

Stories by russian authors with difficult names, where love and hate and the snow mix and make the presence of fate an unbearable, anguishing weight.

David was enraptured.

Once, his grandfather stopped reading mid-sentence, just as the main character was about to make a life-changing decision, and looked up, as if he had heard something.

He had slowly put down his pipe, and waited a moment, almost anxiously. David himself had felt an inexplicable need to hold his breath.

After a few seconds of silence, his grandfather had shaken his head.

Seeing David’s baffled expression, he put the book down and leaned forward, making the wood of his chair crunch.

“I read out loud, little one, not only so that you can listen too to what these great old writers had to say, but also, because the Greeks thought that in reading out loud, you give the dead back their voice.” He said it with a sad, little smile.

David nodded, understanding quickly. “You want to hear grandmother again.”

His grandfather sat back again, putting back his pipe in his mouth, opening the book and looking for the last sentence he had read, “Marie _adored_ Dostojevsky.”

*

When he has the time, between classes, gym, his friends and Matteo, David buys himself a book, usually second-hand, sits down in his room, before the window, and reads it out loud.

He swears when he does, it feels like there’s someone sitting with him in the room. And even if Laura denies it, he swears he can smell tobacco lingering in his room for hours afterwards.

Grief is a funny thing. It doesn’t really let you go. It becomes a part of you.

*

Matteo is cooking pasta in the kitchen, his lanky hips swaying to Hozier. David steps into the kitchen, still pulling away his scarf, tired from his day at university.

He smells the air, “Let me guess...pasta alla Luigi?”

Matteo turns his face away from the stove, and as soon as he sees him, he grins. “Indeed! Well guessed. Now you get a kiss as a prize.”

He pushes his lips out in a ridiculous fish face and David laughs, “Oh, how generous.” He takes his boyfriend’s face in his hands and smacks a kiss on his puckered lips.

He puts his chin over Matteo’s shoulder and looks into the pan, the tomatoes are beginning to bristle with the oil and the smell is making David’s mouth water.

“Did you eat something today, Mr Schreibner?” Matteo asks, as David puts his arms around his waist and nuzzles his neck.

David makes a noncommital noise and presses a kiss behind Matteo’s ear.

“David?” Matteo’s voice sounds strict.

David sighs, “No, I forgot.”

Matteo finishes throwing the pasta into the boiling water and pushes away from the stove. He puts his hands over David’s and turns his body so that they’re face to face.

“I know you are a very busy man and your wonderful, big brain is always buzzing with ideas, but you are a mere mortal too, and you need to eat like the rest of us, okay?”

David gives Matteo’s hands a squeeze and nodds. “I know, I know, there’s just so many other things to do that are more important than eating-“

Matteo slaps a hand over his mouth, “Don’t you _dare_, dude. There’s nothing more important than food.”

Before David can lick his way back to freedom, he puts his hand away, and his voice gets softer, “There’s nothing more important than _you_, David. Please remember to eat, I really don’t want to get a call one day to know that you fainted during class because your dumb ass skipped both breakfast and lunch.”

David huffs and puts his arms around Matteo’s shoulders, “All right, all right, _mom_. I will be more careful.”

Matteo raises his left eyebrow.

David raises both of them.

Matteo snorts and gives him a quick peck, then he turns back around, “Now, go set the table and stop being distracting. The masterchef needs to get back to the pasta.”

The morning after, when David’s getting out of Matteo’s flat to go to uni, he finds a little plastic container on the table with a paper stuck on it. On the paper, Matteo’s chicken handwriting has written: _lunch, for the most important thing._

David feels his heart grow with warmth at the thought that somebody really would care so much about him.

He puts the container with the pasta in his backpack and the paper in the pocket of his shirt.

He takes out his phone and writes Matteo a message:_ i cant believe you called me a thing, thats objectification._

Then another, _Thanks_.

When he jumps on his bike he’s still smiling. Matteo is so full of love, sometimes David wishes he could drown in it.

He thinks about his wonderful boy, Matteo with the softest smile he has ever seen and the most thoughtful and loving gestures, the most gentle voice, the lightest touches and kisses.

_So this can be masculinity, too_, David thinks, _caring so much about someone that you prepare them lunch, because they forget to eat._

At eleven, he gets a text back from Matteo. It’s a middle finger emoticon next to a little heart. David grins.

From then on, Matteo prepares him lunch everytime they go to sleep together.

*

It hasn’t really let go of him, his fear of masculinity.

There’s an inherent violence in being male, David thinks, something learned with society, with centuries of the sovereignity of the patriarchy.

It’s everywhere, in movies (even in ones that David used to love, before putting them under a more critical light), in books, in shows, in politics, in adverts, in school, in his everyday life.

Everywhere he looks, he feels like the male gaze is already watching.

And David really doesn’t want to be part of it.

Sometimes he still feels like a strange creature in-between. He grew up being considered female, so he didn’t always have the male entitlement he could benefit from now. But neither does he think he knows what’s it like to be a woman in a man’s world, because he has just never been one.

He knows what it’s like to be different, though.

He knows, in a strangely distorted way, what’s it like to be _something else _in a man’s world, in a world built for the cis male-female binary.

And for white people.

He knows he doesn’t completely fit in and he probably never will.

But neither does he want to.

He gets more and more active in his LGBT+ centre, helping organize protests and fundraises and talking to all the younger kids that come to the place still feeling lost.

It makes him feel good, less restless, that he’s doing something, but it still isn’t enough. There’s always something in him that itches, something that makes him feel like a stranger everywhere he goes.

Every day he discovers something new about himself. Every day feels a little like a fight.

Every day he tries desperately to do the right thing. It’s all he wants to do, after all.

The right thing.

*

He whispers his doubts into Matteo’s neck, one night, when they lie together in David’s bed, still dazed and slightly breathless.

“So _that’s_ what been bothering you,” Matteo whispers back. “You’re always so tired.”

David presses his eyes closed.

Matteo passes his fingers through David’s hair, over his face, his nose, his cheeks, his eyebrows, his eyelids. Studying his face like a painter, like a blind man.

He says, “You know, you don’t have to be perfect.” He kisses his forehead. “You’re good enough as you are. When will you accept it?”

David cries.

*

He’s so embarassed about it that he doesn’t talk about it for days, pretending it never happened.

Matteo throws him slightly amused glances, occasionally, but he waits.

_Patience_, David thinks, _that can be part of masculinity, as well._

*

Finally, as they’re all over at Jonas’, drinking beer and playing videogames, Matteo gets up from the floor where he has just spectacularly lost a match to Abdi, and starts going to the kitchen.

When he passes David, he catches his hand and drags him with him. “Come, I need your help with something.” He says, flatly.

The other boys erupt in cackles and Carlos chortles, “Is that what the young people are calling it these days?”

Abdi drapes himself over Carlos’ legs, “Ohh, Carlos, I need your help with something!”

Jonas just shouts after them, “No funny business in the kitchen, guys, I’m begging you!”

Matteo gives them all the middle finger without looking back, David shrugs at them. Both saying that he doesn’t know what’s happening either, and, _I can’t promise you your kitchen’s immunity, buddy, sorry._

Once they’re in the kitchen, alone, Matteo looks at him with serious eyes. “How are you?”

David blinks, “Fine. Why?”

Matteo bites at his lower lip, “You’ve been fidgeting all day, it’s like your mind is somewhere else.”

David starts shaking his head, but Matteo continues, “I was actually thinking that maybe...you could try talking to Jonas about it?”

David furrows his eyebrows, “Jonas?”

Matteo looks at the floor, “He feels like that, too, sometimes. Like he’s not doing enough for the world, or whatever. Maybe he can help you feel better.” He looks up again, “Even though you’re both doing the most and you’re idiots for not realising that it is enough.”

David sighs. “Yeah, I guess this isn’t such a bad idea, actually.”

Matteo leans into him, smiling, “Not such a bad idea? Excuse me?”

David chuckles, “All right, all right, it’s a _good_ idea. Happy, you baby?”

Matteo presses their foreheads together and plays with David’s fingers, “Yes.”

Then he kisses him.

Matteo starts putting his arms around David, pulling him even closer, when they hear someone clear their throat at the door, “I see I’ve come just in the right moment.”

They stop kissing and Matteo lets his head fall on David’s shoulder.

“Jonaaaaas, is one single moment of privacy too much to ask?”

Jonas takes three beer bottles from the fridge, “You’re in my kitchen, dude.”

David pats Matteo’s head, “Well, he’s right about that.”

Matteo huffs, “You’re taking _his_ side?”

Then he quickly leans in again and whispers into his ear, “Talk to him.” He gives him one last, quick peck, and then he’s out of the door, shouting, “Revanche Abdi, I demand a revanche!”

Now, that means that David and Jonas are left alone in the kitchen.

Jonas is opening the beers, David takes a step closer, “Uh, Jonas, there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Jonas smiles “Sure,” he offers him a beer, David takes it.

They both lean against the counter, David fiddles a bit with his bottle, “You work at the social centre, right? And do you...does that...” he shakes his head, looking for the right words, “Do you feel like you’re doing enough? Because I try to do my best but it feels like it’s just never enough, you know? And I feel guilty that I don’t do more, but at the same time I’m always tired, so I get frustrated and...I don’t know.._so angry_ at everything.”

He shrugs and takes a quick gulp of beer.

Jonas looks at him, tapping his fingers against his bottle. “I totally get what you just described, bro. I volunteer at the centre and that does help a lot, but at the same time I’m constantly aware that there would be other hundreds of things I should be doing, preparing and organizing. And if I think too long about it, then it starts killing me.”

He looks up, “I’m not sure if it ever will be completely gone, this feeling of not doing enough, but...well, the best thing we can do is remember that anything is always better than nothing.”

He gives him a little smile and pats his shoulder, “Just day after day, try telling yourself, today I did something, it might not be much but it is not nothing. I helped, at least a little. Day after day, you’ll see a little becomes a lot.”

David smiles a little too, “Yeah, this might actually help.” he rises his bottle, “Thanks, dude.”

Jonas clinks their bottles together, then he gives his shoulder a little shake, “Now let’s go out there and kick some asses.”

*

Sometimes, the world just appears to be too big to live in it.

The news he reads on his phone, on the screens in the metro, on the tv at home, it’s all too much. It makes his breath come short.

He thinks, _bit by bit._ He thinks, _you’re not doing nothing._

He catches his breath again.

David looks out of the window at night and feels his heart explode with too many emotions for words.

*

There’s an Icelandic belief that his grandfather told him about, once.

It says that if you count the windows of the house you’re staying in before going to bed, then the dreams you’ll have that night will come true.

When he was younger, David used to do it almost every night. He thought, _well it can just get better than this, after all._

He doesn’t, anymore.

Not because he has nightmares, he actually doesn’t anymore, not with Matteo laying beside him, but because he just doesn’t think there’s any dream that could make his reality much better than it is.

He’s fine. He’s finally, wonderfully fine.

It’s just his thoughts that drag him back to his past, sometimes. To his usual doubts and fears. His own mind that’s playing tricks on him. His skin that keeps itching with restlessness.

But the present is here, ready for him. Its hands outstretched towards him.

Ready to catch him.

*

He keeps drawing.

It makes his brain calm down. Sometimes he’s so frustrated and angry that he wants to throw something, to hit something. He draws many different things, instead.

The waves and the colored glass pieces he used to find on the beach, when he misses the North Sea.

People he sees on the street, in the metro, who have secrets in their eyes that he tries to unravel with a few black lines.

Plants he sees growing on the side of the road.

His friends, sitting together in the evening, laughing, careless and outside of time.

Film ideas; aliens, strangers, wanderers, a black sun, windows, catching dreams in the palms of your hands like butterflies.

And obviously, Matteo.

He’s everywhere, his crooked smile and his sleepy eyes, his crazy hair and all the little birthmarks on his face, on his whole body, sprinkled like stars.

*

They are at a party, David doesn’t know whose house it is actually, standing together and chatting. David has his arm around Matteo’s waist and Matteo occasionally presses quick, light kisses to his jaw. They are all more than just pleasantly buzzed.

Amira is just telling them a funny story about a costumer who opened the door to her in nothing but his underwear and a ferret around his neck, when David notices some movement in the corner of the room.

He looks around and sees a guy trying to kiss a girl, pushing her againts the wall, while she, clearly completely drunk, half-heartedly tries to pull him away from her.

David feels something in him break.

He lets go of Matteo, who doesn’t even seem to notice as he’s laughing out loud at Amira’s reenaction of the ferret owner, and goes towards the corner.

_I’m quite drunk as well_, he thinks distractedly, as he sees that the room spins a little as he walks.

The guy is putting his hands on her breast and she keeps pushing at his hands.

_Not again_, David thinks, _not on my watch._

After something that feels like centuries, he’s finally standing behind them.

“Hey, don’t you see that she’s way too drunk for anything?” He says, pulling at the guy’s shoulder.

The guy turns back, looks at David and says, “Keep out of this, dude.”

David frowns, “No, _dude_. I don’t think I will idly sit back and watch while you try to rape someone.”

The guy crosses his arms, behind him the girl seems to realize that he isn’t paying attention to her and takes the moment to stumble away.

“I wasn’t _raping_ her, what’s up with you? And who are you, anyway?”

David just shakes his head, “She looked clearly uncomfortable but I suppose an asshole like you didn’t even care to ask for her consent, did you?”

The guy laughs meanly, “Consent? You’re one of those SJW idiots, right? That would definitely have killed the mood. She was into it, I know it. They say they don’t want to, but that’s just them being sly, it actually means that they want you to take it. All chicks are like that, they need to be handled with some force-“

David punches him in the face.

All goes quiet.

The guy looks at him with blood over his face and his hands, then he throws himself at him.

As soon as the guy’s fist collides with David’s face, there’s hands pulling him away and someone behind him that puts their arms around his body.

The guys have arrived, Carlos and Abdi are holding the guy back by the arms and Jonas has thrown himself in the middle, his arms outstretched. Matteo has catched David from behind.

David hears a buzzing sound in his ears and nothing else.

He blinks and sees Matteo’s pale face before him. He looks scared.

He feels something cold on his face, he wants to touch it but his whole body is frozen. He wants to tell Matteo that he’s all right. He wants to explain the situation.

But he feels like he’s not there anymore.

He looks up and the party disappears.

Suddenly, it’s like being underwater. The quiet, the dampened light.

His grandfather stands in the corner, smoking.

_What did you do, lad?_ His dark eyes are very sad.

“-vid, David, hey, can you hear me?”

_Matteo_, David thinks, feeling light-centuries of distance away.

Someone slaps him.

He opens his eyes and it’s like coming up for air.

Above him Matteo is shoving Amira’s worried face away, “Hey, hey, David, are you with me?”

David nodds and slowly brings a hand to his face, it comes away red. Matteo takes his face in his hands, carefully, oh so carefully, and puts their foreheads together. They breath in sync for a moment.

Then Matteo pulls away and takes his arms, “Can you stand?”

David nodds again, even if his head feels like it’s full of cotton.

Matteo puts an arm around his waist and pulls him up.

As soon as they’re standing, David sees that Jonas and Amira are arguing with the guy that punched him, while Carlos and Abdi stand behind them.

Well. The guy that _he_ punched.

Someone comes up to his other side, it’s Hanna. She smiles gently at him and pulls his other arm over her shoulders.

David sees now that the music has stopped and a circle has formed around them. The girls are there, too, and they all look ready to get into the argument if needed.

“We really should get you home,” Matteo whispers, looking at him.

Hanna throws a look at the situation and says, “Yeah, the others will solve this, you need to be cleaned up.”

Once they’re outside, the cold November air hits him straight in the face and he feels lightheaded.

“I’m sorry.” He says, as the others keep silent. “It’s the first time I’ve hit someone but he was...there was a girl and he was just..”

Matteo just shakes his head, “We can talk about it when we’re home.”

David closes his eyes, feeling extremely tired. He sighs, “Yeah.”

*

Matteo has sent Hanna back to the party to make sure that no more fights break out and everyone of them gets home safe.

Now, he’s sitting next to David on the bathtub, cleaning his face with a wet towel. He hasn’t said anything since Hanna’s gone.

“Matteo...” David starts, but he doesn’t really know where he wants to go. “I’m sorry.” He says again.

Matteo keeps touching his face gently with the towel, concentrating.

He finishes slowly, then he puts it away and takes out a creme for where David’s cheek has split open. “The douche was wearing a ring, how fucked is that? To punch someone with a ring?” He murmurs.

He pushes the creme on David’s face, ever so carefully. Then he takes out a plaster and slowly puts that on, too.

“How fucked is it to punch someone at all?” He whispers, and his voice breaks.

David is scared to see that his eyes are getting wet.

“Matteo...” David says, putting a hand on his shoulder. Matteo closes his eyes and breathes. “I am not a violent person, you know this.”

Matteo nodds. David tries to explain what’s happening inside of him, “I just...I don’t know, I’ve felt this restlessness in me for so long, I’m so angry sometimes, I...he was trying to rape her!”

Matteo presses his lips together, “I’m not angry that you punched that asshole, he totally deserved it and I’m glad that you noticed and did something. I also think it’s totally fine to punch sexist idiots like him in the face or racists or nazis or that whole fucking lot. But.”

He breaths in, a little shakingly, “But your face was full of blood and then you sort of...went slack. I had to catch you, you know? You would have fallen to the floor otherwise, it’s like your body went into shock. You didn’t-“ He shakes his head again, “You didn’t even hear me. You were not there.”

David takes his hands in his. Matteo bites his cheek. “I was scared. I don’t want you getting punched. I think violence is justificated sometimes but...but I _hate_ violence.” David presses a kiss to his knuckles.

“I understand.” David says. “I did not think I was able to do that.” He adds.

Matteo looks at him again.

David leans forwards and kisses him, as softly as he can.

“Can we go to sleep?” He asks. Matteo nodds.

Matteo helps him getting out of his clothes without touching his face, it’s a bit more difficult with the binder, but they manage. They lay down and Matteo wraps his arms around him, like he did earlier. Catching him before he falls.

“Never do that again, please.” He whispers into his neck. David brings one of his hands to his mouth and kisses it again.

*

_Violence and sexism, is that all there is to being a boy?_

He remembers thinking about it once, before going on testosterone.

He thinks about the fact that injecting T into your body every second week _does_ make you more aggressive.

He thinks about feeling his heartbeat so loud in his ears that there’s nothing else.

He thinks about the blood rushing in his ears when he threw out the punch.

The adrenaline he felt running through his body, as if he were suddenly awake.

He thinks about the guy’s face, his eyes wide open, scared. Of _him_.

He thinks about his skin itching with restlessness.

_There’s an inherent violence in being male._

He thinks about Matteo’s pale face, his ocean eyes, his mouth open, calling his name, again and again.

He thinks about his grandfather, standing there silent, disappointed.

He thinks about the care with which he used to handle everything, the gentleness with which he used to tell him stories, the patience with which he used to explain him things.

He thinks about the boys standing together with him, being there for him.

Their jokes and smiles and the easy way they accepted him into their group.

He thinks about Jonas, the way he listened to him and gave him advice, the way he sometimes puts an arm around his shoulders or just pushes their shoulders together, in silent solidarity.

He thinks about the way Matteo cares.

About the way he hugs him when he comes home, the way he takes his face into his hands, the way he kisses him, the way he waits, the way he’s there for him.

He thinks about doing the right thing.

_Violence and sexism, is that all there is to masculinity?_

*

The morning after, when David wakes up, Matteo isn’t laying beside him.

He blinks and his face feels like it’s on fire.

He stands up, groaning, and decides against putting his binder on. Today he has a day off and the only person he will see will probably be Matteo, as Laura’s away on a trip to the mountains with her girlfriend.

He drags himself to the kitchen and sees that Matteo is already sitting at the table, holding a mug and looking outside the window. The morning light is clear and pale, it makes Matteo’s face look soft, strangely melancholic, like it belongs to a different time.

“Hey”, David croaks out, passing a hand through his horrible bed-hair and stepping into the kitchen.

Matteo turns to him and gives him a little smile, “Good morning, my love.” Then he points to the stove with his mug, “I made you your hell brew, if you want.”

David blows him a kiss and gets himself a mug of coffee. They sit, one in front of the other.

“So...” David begins.

Matteo grins a little, “How’s your cheek?”

David grimaces, then he puts his hand up to his face because, _ouch, that hurt._

Matteo grimaces as well and takes another drink of his hot chocolate.

An awkward silence fills the space between. It’s been a while since this last happened.

Matteo starts tracing a pattern on the table, with his fingers. “David...I think...I need a little time alone.”

It hits David like another fist in the face. “What?”

Matteo chews on his lower lip, still looking at the table, “Not long, just...I think you need some time to figure some stuff out, on your own. This thing about being angry all the time, about being restless...it might have gone a bit too far, you know? Just try to....I don’t know. I need some time to think as well.”

David blinks. “What?” Is the only thing he can repeat.

Matteo looks up and finally notices his panicked expression, he reaches out and takes David’s hand, he passes his thumb over his knuckles, “This isn’t me breaking up with you! Never! I just need a moment alone and I think you need one as well.”

David looks at their hands, “This thing yesterday really shook you, didn’t it?” He looks up into those sad oceans, “It won’t happen again.”

Matteo smiles a little and raises David’s hand to press a kiss to its back, “I know and I trust you, but...I just can’t get over your face, covered in blood. And the way you didn’t hear me...I think there’s stuff inside of you with which you need to make peace, alone.”

David looks at him, numbly.

Matteo cups his face with one hand and presses a feather-soft kiss on his lips, “Just find me when you’re ready. You know I’m waiting.”

And then, he leaves.

*

Maybe you can’t always do the right thing.

*

David sits before his window in his room, his sketchbook before him open and empty.

He tries to think of something to draw, and theoretically he knows what he wants to put to the paper: monsters, boys with monsters inside of them, boys with blood on their face, boys with holes inside of their chest, boys with bitter tastes in their mouths and fears too big for their bodies.

He knows what he needs to draw, he just can’t being himself to actually _do it._

It would take way too much energy, he thinks, to take the pencil in his hand and then start creating. He looks out of the window and feels extremely lonely.

The streetlight outside of his window is cutting through the night, illuminating a strip of snowflakes falling quietly to the ground.

_Every snowflake is a dream_, he thinks. _Every snowflake is a wish._

He crosses his arms and leans his face on them. He thinks about his anger, his need to do more, to be more. Why can’t he be happy with what he has? When will he ever be satisfied? Why does he always wish for more?

_Because you’re an adventurer at heart_. His grandfather is standing behind him, a hand on his shoulder. _Just like me. You long to take to the sea and sail up to the stars._

David looks up to him. His grandfather takes a drag of his pipe, _but nobody can reach the stars, lad. All those who tried have drowned, cold and alone on the silent sea._

He ruffles his hair, _now you need to remember how to swim._

David blinks and he’s alone in the room. He lets his head fall down on his arms and sighs.

The cut on his face burns.

*

He dreams of Matteo holding his face and kissing him, whispering into his lips, _You’re enough as you are. When will you accept it?_

*

David decides he wants to go to visit his grandfather’s grave, near Hamburg.

He hasn’t been there since his funeral, all those years ago, when he had just started to discover who he was.

When he tells Laura about it, she offers to go with him, but he refuses. Matteo was right, he needs to get through _this_, whatever this is, alone.

He takes an ICE train from Berlin to Hamburg, then a bus from Hamburg to the little town where the cemetery is.

He thinks about taking a taxi and visiting his grandfather’s old cabin at the sea, but his parents have sold it and he doesn’t want to see who it belongs to now, how much they must have changed it all.

The cemetery isn’t big, he finds the grave almost as soon as he gets inside. The wet earth underneath his boots crunches with cold snow.

Nobody else is in the cemetery, it’s just him and the dead.

The fir trees around him create a barrier to the external world, he feels like stepping into a strange middle-ground. Not here nor there. Not alive but not dead either yet. A treshold.

He stands before his grandfather’s grave and puts his hands in the pockets of his coat. “I still don’t understand why they didn’t cremate you.” He says. “It was your only wish, after all.”

His grandfather doesn’t say anything.

David swallows and puts his scarf a bit more over his face, it’s Matteo’s and it still smells like him. “Did I ever tell you about my boyfriend? He’s wonderful, I’m sure you would have loved him.”

He sits down on the earth, uncaring of the wetness. “He has the same kindness in him that you had.”

He looks up into the crown of the trees. In one of them a crow calls out something (A name? A curse? A wish?) and takes flight, black feathers against the pale clouds.

“What am I doing wrong?” He whispers, still looking up.

Nobody answers.

He takes out a book he has brought from Berlin with him. It’s a used edition of Puškin’s poetry.

He clears his throat, he has an audience after all, and starts reading out loud.

*

Maybe there’s parts inside of us that we will never completely understand.

Things that we don’t like but that come out in the most different moments, as much as we don’t want them to.

There’s an anger in him that needs to get out. A frustration that is born from living in a world where injustice is the norm. A restlessness that he can’t seem to contain.

Is he living his life to the fullest?

Is he being himself?

Is he doing the right thing?

When will he be happy with himself?

He thinks that nobody knows the answers to these questions.

It’s like asking the sky if there’s a god out there who cares about us. Or asking a crow if there’s life after death. Or asking the snow if there’s a meaning to all this, our little charade.

He is the way he is.

In every possible way, that is enough.

*

He doesn’t know for how long has been reading, but his theoat feels sore and his eyes are tired. Around him the light is starting to dim, as it does in the early evenings of winter.

He closes his eyes and it almost seems like he can hear the North Sea’s waves.

When he opens them again, his grandfather is sitting before him, leaning his back on his own grave.

_Maybe next time you could bring some Čeckov_, he says, and grins around his pipe.

David feels something inside of him unravel. He grins back.

*

It’s morning when he gets back to Berlin. He greets Laura with a hug and she laughs, surprised. He sits down at his desk, outside the snow is falling, and he finishes some uni assignments that he had ignored these last few days.

Then he takes out his sketchbook and draws.

He draws crows with human eyes, he draws the snow whispering as it falls to the ground, he draws sea monsters and a man on his little boat who stretches his arms out wide. It isn’t clear if towards the monsters or the stars above them.

He draws a boy who presses his hands to his chest, as if he’s holding it all in, as if he’s admiring how much his body can contain.

It’s already early in the afternoon when he stops drawing, stretches his back and gets up.

He puts on his coat and Matteo’s scarf, presses a kiss to Laura’s hair, who’s working on her laptop, and goes outside.

*

Mia buzzes him up and when he arrives at the end of the stairs, Matteo is already standing at the door, leaning on the wall.

“Na?” David says and smiles, because he can’t not smile when he sees Matteo.

Matteo smiles too, “Na?”

They look at each other another moment, then, as if someone has pushed them, they fall into each other’s arms.

David hides his face into Matteo’s neck and breathes in. “I missed you.” Matteo murmurs into his ear.

David squeezes him, “I missed you, too.”

They lean away from each other and kiss.

Then, David pulls away and takes Matteo’s face in his hands, he passes his thumbs over his cheeks, “Will you come with me?” He asks.

Matteo looks at him and it feels like he sees every part of him, even the ones he doesn’t like, even the ones he himself knows nothing about.

He raises his hand and softly, softly, touches David’s cut on his cheek.

“Everywhere.” He answers.

*

David takes him to the North Sea.

They’ve found a cheap bed’n’breakfast, the old lady has just blinked a moment as they asked for a single bedroom, then she has smiled and given them the key.

It’s already dark when they go to the beach.

The air is cold and salty and the wind makes Matteo’s hair stand in every possible direction. David laughs and tries to pat it down, but Matteo runs away and David has to follow him. It’s not difficult to catch up with him, though, and as soon as he does, he makes both of them tumble to the ground.

So they lay there, both of them still laughing and catching their breath.

David has his hands on Matteo’s chest and Matteo is looking at him with those ocean eyes and that stupid smile of his, so David leans down and kisses him on the lips.

Matteo passes his hands through his hair and kisses him back, then David moves down and kisses his neck, his shoulderblades.

Matteo chuckles into his hair, “Do we really want to do this?”

David grins up to him, “Nobody will see us.”

Matteo kisses him again, “You’re crazy and if I get a cold because of this it’s your fault.”

David gets back to his work, “Think of all the things you would miss out on without me!”

Matteo sighs happily, “Oh, you _fucker_.”

*

They walk back to the bed’n’breakfast giggling and shoving each other.

The waves crash next to them to the sand.

At one point, Matteo takes off his shoes and tries putting his feet in the water, the he screeches, “Jesus, that’s fucking _cold_!” and runs back up.

David laughs so much that his belly hurts.

He hugs Matteo, who gives him the middle finger, and then he takes his hands and dances with him on the beach.

Over them the stars shine and they don’t even seem so far away.

*

Once they finally get back, they jump into bed and cuddle up in the warm covers.

David feels like his chest is full of warmth. He kisses Matteo’s nose and whispers, “I love you.”

Matteo smiles, content, and huddles closer, “I love you, too.”

*

There’s an old belief, that women bring misfortune on sea, that they must stay on land, lest the ship should wreck.

It’s almost like there were two different worlds once, one for men, on the wide ocean, a world of adventures and freedom, of manly companionship between sailors, of magical creatures and seductive mermaids, and one for women, the house, the hearth, the children, the monotony, the fatigue.

Obviously David has never believed in this division. Neither did his grandfather, even if he used to tell him stories of how, when he was young, he was the second son in his family sent to the sea to fish with his father, while his sister waited at home with their mother.

David isn’t a woman and he never would have been.

But he thinks about being born almost a century ago. He thinks about being born in some other place of the world. He thinks about the stories the people he met at the LGBTQ+ centre told him. He thinks about his parents.

He opens his arms wide and the wind brushes the tears that he feels in the corner of his eyes away.

He opens his arms wide and he laughs and laughs, madly, desperately, tasting salt on his lips.

*

That’s how Matteo finds him, in the morning.

Standing on a rock with his arms outstreched, crying and laughing at once, like he’s gotten crazy.

David feels Matteo’s hand on his neck and opens his eyes, letting his arms fall down. Matteo looks at him for a moment, then he hugs him, he envelops David’s strange body in his lanky arms and David hides his head in his shoulder, suddenly unbearably tired.

“All right?” He feels him mumble into his ear.

David can just shrug a little, overcome with feeling. “Sorry.” Matteo strokes his neck and his hair, quietly, patiently.

Finally David rises his face and looks Matteo in the eyes, then he moves his eyes to the sea. “I’m just incredibly happy and lucky that I get to be here, with you.”

Then he slowly shakes his head, “But I’m also sad and angry that I must feel so lucky. Why can’t anybody just be who they are? Love who they love?”

He looks down, “Why is the world so mad? Why must it be so difficult for us to just, _be_?”

Matteo takes his face into his hands and David looks up, again. Matteo’s eyes are sad oceans, almost the same color of the water behind him.

“There’s many things that don’t make sense in this world, so much that’s just fucking...horrible, and I guess...we can just do our best to change it.” He leans forwards so that their noses touch. “To make it a better place.”

David smiles a little and Matteo snorts, “Look, you and Jonas are such a bad influence that I’m becoming an actual activist, with pep talks and everything.”

David kisses him, “Ah yes, my own little SJW.” He pulls back a little, “Do you really have a choice, though?”

Matteo blinks at him, then he presses his lips together, “No, once you see the injustice and, well, once you feel it on your own skin...it’s not a choice anymore, to fight back.” He looks up, biting back a little self-ironic smile, “It _is_ a duty.”

David leans his head on Matteo’s shoulder again, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” He murmurs. He looks up, “It’s exhausting, though. Sometimes I just want to be myself without having to fight with my teeth and nails for it.”

Matteo presses a soft kiss into his hair. He takes his hand and intertwines their fingers, “Want to go back inside, my love?”

He rises his arm and makes him do a twirl, and David has to laugh again.

*

Before getting the train back home, they sit in a little café and drink a cup of coffee. Well, David does. Matteo, as always, drinks a hot chocolate.

They are the only ones in the café, it is still very early and the town is silent. The café owner, an older gentleman, is sitting behind the counter, sleepily reading the news.

Matteo and David look out of the window, the sea is grey and wide before them. An enormous and beautiful mystery.

Matteo reaches out his hand and plays with David’s fingers. “Hey, we’ll make it. Together.”

David looks at the clouds and he feels, somehow, like he’s finally doing the right thing.

“Yes,” he says, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, im not a native english speaker so there could be some...strange sentence placing or stuff like that! Im @rimbaux on tumblr if u want to tell me anything (about the fic or just in general) kudos and comments are SO appreciated, i cry everytime i read one!


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